'My coworkers have talked about "the cabinet incident"': 20+ Workers who had memorable meltdowns

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    What's the most legendary work meltdown you've seen? downvolt writing financial software in the 80s. The systems analyst sitting at her desk near me suddenly burst into tears and wailed "it's all so pointless money doesn't - mean anything!"
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    What's the most legendary work meltdown you've seen?
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    downvolt writing financial software in the 80s. The systems analyst sitting at her desk near me suddenly burst into tears and wailed "it's all so pointless money doesn't - mean anything!"
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    [deleted] My P.E. teacher in the 9th grade got fired for this 1. She tells us to walk laps around the school for cardio day. Some kids decided to run and managed to finish 3 laps by the time the rest of us finished like 2. When we finish our second lap, we see the runners sitting, and the teacher just scream "GET | PUNY YOUR OVER HERE". She proceeds to push the whole class onto the track in 97 degree weather and makes us sprint a mile and says that anybody who gets below
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    7:30 has to run it again (it was a 90 minute period). Everybody finishes, and she sits us down and calls us a multitude of bad words, and tells us that we should have finished 3 laps like they did instead of only 2, even though she told us to walk, not run, and they were running. The whole time we notice that a girl isnt here anymore. We later found out she had to be taken away in an ambulance because she had asthma and our 1 of a teacher denied her of her inhaler, so she fainted and was taken t
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    Nathann... I worked at Taco Bell while in high school. One of my coworkers was this guy who was really friendly, but also really strange. He was obsessed with being a "straight edge" kid and drew the Xs on his hands, and the whole nine yards. He had a high pitched, but pleasant voice, and spoke in an overly polite manner. Anyway, he had put in his two weeks and on his last day he was working the front counter register. This lady walks up to order and he just stares at her. After a few
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    seconds she says "Umm... can you take my order?" In his very calm and polite voice he says "Oh, I am sorry ma'am, but I cannot." There was another awkward pause and she says "Ummm... well why not?" He responds with "....BECAUSE I AM A DINOSAUR!!!" He immediately started growling and roaring at her, and he walked back and forth behind the counter like a T-Rex. He did this until the GM who was back making food
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    realized what was going on. On her way up to the counter he calmly clocked out and left. The GM had to apologize over and over again to the poor woman trying to order. That kid was a Taco Bell legend for several years. Edit: I forgot to add that he was a 6'3" 250lb...ish burly guy who wore eye liner and had blue hair.
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    MysteriousPlatypus I wasn't there to see it, but my coworkers have talked about “the cabinet incident." Last year was my first year of teaching, and I was working in a low-income inner city school. People kept saying to me "there's no way you could possibly be worse than the last girl we had." When I asked what they meant, I was told that a few years prior the principal had hired a first year teacher. Apparently one day she got so overwhelmed and upset by the behavior of her class that she chuck
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    ran into the back room, shut herself in a big cabinet and cried. Her class was unsupervised for a while (apparently none of the kids had told anyone what happened) and when the principal found her, she was curled up on the floor of the cabinet, rocking back and forth and sobbing. Clearly, she was fired soon after that.
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    I didn't stay at that school longer than a year because the principal was the equivalent of Satan, but when I left she said to me "despite all the you were put through this year from your kids, you're the first teacher I can remember who I never saw cry at school." I'll take that as a compliment, I suppose.
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    Micolash... Working a retail summer job. A forklift driver was moving a skid of pickled eggs that wasn't wrapped properly. It fell, and a shitton of juice and eggs went everywhere. Manger comes out and does the "takes off hat and throws it on the ground while yelling GAAAWWWWDAAAAMN IT." After he went full Gunnery Sergeant Hartman on the dudes for up. It was enough to make him cry and quit the next day.
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    edit: Some follow up. Mr. Manager was with HR the next day. Lost his manager position for a few months. When he got his manager position back he was pretty chill from now on. Some of us younger guys don't like it as much because his outburst were quite funny. (I remember one time I was getting an earful and I could hear some of my friends trying to contain their laughter in the next aisle.) As for the forklift guy, he did come back and is now working mornings instead of evenings.
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    murrieta123 9th grade, my english teacher had a breakdown in front of the class. kept silent but started crying whilst writing on the overhead projector her complaints about the disrespectful kids in her class.
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    [deleted] When I was an intern we had a high priority project come through that my mentor was working on. Really fast turn around with many coffee, and late nights, good beer. Anyway it was towards the end of the project and I was finishing bring up on the board at my bench when I heard him muttering quietly to himself. I looked up to see if he needed me and watched him absolutely POUND a computer monitor with his fist then grab it, smash it down on the floor before stomping on it
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    screaming "Theres no DRC error you He calmed down after a bit, got a beer then requested a new monitor. Thats when I learned that no matter. How mad you are screaming at Altium will not make your sleep deprivation better.
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    darkligh... I had a coworker freak out on a customer at Wal-Mart. I used to be a cashier, and people used to tend to treat us like . Anyway, the lady got pissy because she couldn't price match some doritos because it was the wrong size or something. Anyway it escalates, we cant find the csm and a few minutes later they are screaming at each other. The cashier's
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    parting words were "I ain't price matching your doritos! You don't even need those doritos, with your fat "ן Needless to say, that was her last day.
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    [deleted] I was in court (lawyer) and we were arguing a motion and requesting sanctions against Plaintiff's attorney. The judge starts talking and dressing down the Plaintiff's attorney... who, now offended, decided it would be a great idea to interrupt the judge, insult the judge, and flat out told him "You were too stupid to make it in private practice and you do not know what the doing." you are
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    She had been licensed for all of 3 years. She is no longer licensed. Edit: she was being sanctioned for soliciting false testimony by falsifying an affidavit.
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    MeltdownInteractive I worked in IT and one guy, who was one of the most chilled guys I knew, was responsible for the deployment, updates and maintenance of a specific product that generated high revenue. One afternoon I was sitting at my desk and just heard a big crash and saw one of his 3 monitors on the floor. He stood up, shoved the next monitor over the divider onto the next sections desk, then swiped the third monitor off the other side, picked up his keyboard
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    and smashed it as hard as he could, kicked his chair away and slowly, and calmly walked out the department, without saying a word. He came back to work the next day as if nothing happened. Everyone knew the pressure he was under and was very good at his job so nobody said a thing.
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    xgonegiveit2ya Actually it was the quietest most calm meltdown, but it screamed of anger and frustration. So I used to work in a bank's call center. A colleague of mine came in the morning (he came in late and didn't even have his coffee) and logged in. The first caller was who started a screaming obscenities so early in the morning. My colleague without saying a word, hung up the phone while the customer was still talking, logged off and put his headset on the table. He walked
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    calmly and get a pen and paper, wrote his resignation and handed it over to his supervisor alongside his access card. He walked out the call center and never came back. All of this without saying a single word. It was the embodiment of the phrase "action speaks louder than words."
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    makeitwork1989 In high school I worked at a grocery store and this kid was all I off at another bagger and swearing in front of the customers. He said he was hoping he'd get fired. I told him he should quit before he gets fired so that it would look better on his resume in the future. A few minutes later I realized he was missing, then suddenly he comes around the corner from the managers office, no longer in uniform (he threw his uniform in the trash in front of the
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    manager) then he looked at me and said loudly "I took your advice" then proceeded to walk across the front end, point to each associate saying you" to each of them and walked out. Everyone was staring at me after and I said "I did not tell him to do THAT!"
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    jmtyndall Best I've seen was my 7th grade math teacher. There was a girl who always talked in class. She got moved to the front at some point and she was laughing and giggling as always. After being told to be quiet about 8 times, the teacher is standing front and center in front of her, back to her and writing an example on the board. Girl has one of those plastic pencil boxes all the girls used to decorate sitting on the front corner of her desk.
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    The teacher just cracked. In one smooth motion he spins around, yells SHUT UP and smacks the box as hard as he can and it goes flying 15 feet across the room, smashes into the wall. Pencils. Freaking. Everywhere. He swiftly walks to the door, slams it shut and we could hear pounding on the wall. One brave kid peeks out the window....dude was banging his head against the wall.
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    About 2 minutes later, he walks back in. Crickets, not a noise in the classroom. He begins walking around picking up every single pen and pencil, puts them all in the box, places it gently on her desk....And then just continues the example like the nothing ever happened. It was exquisite.
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    smilingeasy Not saw but had. I was about 7 months pregnant and had just recently been moved to a different office. The new office had all kinds of rules no one informed me or my fellow coworkers of and I kept getting hauled into the office to be told off for things I didn't even know I was doing wrong. Now, if it was just friendly reminders I wouldn't have had a problem but my supervisor was this high and mighty that kept belittling me and trying to make me feel bad, and kept commenting on
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    how I wasn't fit for this job (keeping in mind I had been doing it for over 2 years at this point with the no problems). Time before the blow out she said I'd be written up next time she has to talk to me. So I'm working away, trying my damnedest to not cuz I really don't want to be written up and I honestly couldn't handle anymore stress. Well I get called. into the office with her and our union rep and I see a notice on her desk. I LOST IT. I starting yelling and crying and listing off
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    all the horrible things she's been putting me through and how it was unfair for her to treat me like this and how half the even told about. I wasn't I think I actually started having a panic attack during the whole ordeal and told the union rep some of the comments she made to me over the past few months. It felt good to get it out and finally put her in her place. She was so taken aback that I stood up for myself (read: freaked the out) that I ended up being sent
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    home early cuz they were worried about my baby's wellbeing. The notice turned out to just be a list of expectations (only 6 months late) which I had to read and sign but she left me alone after that.
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    HonestT... One day when I listened to a call this woman had a very slow meltdown over the phone that ended in her in sobs. The caller didn't hear something she said and asked her to repeat herself. My coworker repeated herself in a really irritated tone and then says "why does everyone want me to be mean today?" To the caller. the other line is The obviously confused and asked her if she was having a bad day and if she needed to speak to someone else. She then says NO and that she will be the on
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    It gets worse. She bombs this call. Like totally does not do her job correctly and makes this painfully obvious to the point where the caller says that she will help her figure this out together and to not cry anymore (this was a help desk type job for other employees). Well they don't and she ends up crying and you can hear her snap at someone else in the office which obviously has the caller insanely concerned. My coworker goes on a rant about how people are hateful and that she hates this
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    job and that it's too hard for her to do (it wasn't really easy for everyone) and tells the caller she's going to be transferred... We had to call back and issue the caller an apology, she responded by asking if my coworker was going to be okay. We said yes but no, she wasn't. The office manager ended up having to fire her for another call where she was complaining and abusing the caller. Before she was fired she was told she could use her benefits to speak to a counselor because she kept having
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    outbursts bay work and everyone was getting worried about her, she said this wasn't the first time she heard that and didn't know why people kept saying it...... I still think about her (this was 2 years ago) and wonder if she ever got help. TL;DR: lady at my old job had untreated mental issues and kept having meltdowns while taking calls and talking to coworkers.
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    Fantasyhelp420 It was a call center and probably 80 people we're working at the time. All of our cubicles are on the same floor. She sends an email to our boss and CC's the entire office. Something along the lines of this place the boss the breakroom basically everything and your family. Then the last line, "oh yeah I left my badge on my desk"
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    Flaxmoore OP This particular staffer has been on the edge regarding her being employed for about a year. The office manager finally decided to let her go after the fifth time she brought all 5 kids (under 10, all) to work and they destroyed our Keurig. It is on film, the eldest picked it up and slammed it on the floor repeatedly. Her ranting featured extremely loud swearing, calling damnation on the manager, and an itemized list of why we all could
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    dcruzer "RUBBER BANDS! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE! ONE! TWO! THREE!" Apparently, someone in my office. was putting rubber bands all over the place, like around things where it shouldn't be. It annoyed this one girl, and she started accusing people on who did it. Ended up walking through the area the rubber bands were in, yelling about how they were
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    everywhere. Got a work email about how we shouldn't be using work supplies on things other than what they were meant for. TLDR: We had a rubberbandit.
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    [deleted] I studied on a Master's degree in finance which was known for being extremely high pressure and stressful, and both had my own (non-entertaining) breakdown as well as saw others. I'd seen things like a girl break down in tears during a lecture because of the sheer number of assignments we already had when another got assigned, a guy break his pen and just leave the lecture, and several screaming fights among students apparently over group projects.
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    The best was actually pretty calm, though. We had some guy get invited in to talk about some financial security (I forget the name, and have totally left finance with no intentions to return) which effectively allowed you to profit if another person defaulted on their mortgage. About ten minutes into the talk, this one student who everyone respected basically stood up and spent about five minutes completely talking this guy and his career into the ground. The guy kept looking around desperately
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    continued with his talk with the most awkward atmosphere with obvious disrespect just emanating from the students. He completely lost any authority in that room. Every question he got after was basically a snide, and people were openly laughing and booing at him. I think it was in part the unethical nature of the security ☐ off a bunch of students who grew up with a recession, as well as him becoming the focus of everyone's collective stress.
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    LaulauJ... My ex co worker. We work in an office and this one day she must have just been in a bad mood. We were due to have a staff meeting and she was supposed to arrange it all, hand out agendas, prepare the conference room, lock up etc. It was about 10:05 and the meeting was at 10. My boss, who was also in a bad mood, came down to reception and asked what the was going on. She just flipped out on him. She threw a bunch of paperwork at him and just started
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    shouting about how she's fed up of him and is quitting. She then storms out of the office. My boss just stood there, then turned around and went back to his office. The rest of the staff made our way to the conference room for this meeting and as we were sat there, it was really intense and awkward and deathly silent. We were all just looking at our boss waiting for him to react. Surprisingly he stayed super calm.
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    Next thing we know, we hear someone unlock the front door and come in, we assumed it was this lady. We then start to hear furious typing. I mean, she must have been slamming her fingers on the keyboard because we could all hear it from upstairs. So we all just sat there listening to this noise, still deathly silent. Eventually it stopped and this lady storms up the stairs and throws her quitting notice at my boss and leaves again.
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    My boss just looks at it calmly, then finally addresses the rest of us and just said that he will not tolerate being spoken to the way she spoke to him and that was pretty much it. We carried on the day as normal. Still makes me laugh to think about it. That was a good day.
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    criuggn Not at work, but in 7th grade, one girl ripped the pencil sharpener off the wall and threw it at the whiteboard, denting it. Then she threw a chair at our teacher and the principal had to come remove her from the classroom.
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    gothiclg I went to a private high school. The teachers having 12 to 14 hour days plus their grading wasn't at all weird. One of my teachers ended up completely snapping one day in the middle of the school year. He went on a full on rant at one of his classes because they wouldn't stop talking. He was so angry the entire class of about 30 students was being yelled at full volume for 45 minutes of their class time because of this and left them all in complete shock. For
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    the first 20 minutes of my class period he sat there, quietly, witoutnaddressing the class. I've never seen a group of 20 teenagers so silent in my life and I'm sure I'll never see it again.
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    [deleted] Saw a forklift driver snap one day and chase down another guy who'd been winding him up for a while.
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    raaadmads Guy got fired at my work for ordering high-cost items and saying they were for clients. They were purchased using State funds and he would just take the items home. Well, he memorized the phone number receptionists use to page people. It's an actual phone number so anyone is able to call it and it'll go through the speakers. So this guy called it and basically said all of these obscenities about people. It was like that scene in The Office where Michael roasts
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    people for making fun of him. But this guy was VERY It was kinda funny though. The best part was nobody could do anything about it because he was calling from an outside line and wasn't even in the office.
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    UnknownQTY In Year 8 we made a science teacher lock herself in a closet. We were horrible. British day school and boarding school mix. Truly entitled, spoilt little I still feel bad about it.
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    [deleted] My 8th grade teacher got mad at a kid for taking too long sharpening a pencil because the sharpener was broken. She storms over, grabs the pencil, and starts sharpening. But she still can't get it to work! So, she huffs over to the student pencil drawer, rips it open and yanks the drawer so hard it comes flying out. Inside, a pencil sharpener cracked, so a classmate and I tried to clean it up. Then she yelled at us and told us to sit down. Mrs. Crazy then assigns the class a four parag
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    essay instead of a Socratic seminar, because we couldn't 'handle mature topics', which is how she interpreted a few nervous laughs. The period after, she threw a chair at a student. This is the teacher that has broken down in class several times before and has a tendency to throw writing utensils and smart board markers.
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    StarchyIrishman I think mine was the best one I've ever seen so far. I was working at a hardware store and had already given my two weeks notice so I was on my last day as it was. Ended up getting a pretty nasty case of the flu but I didn't want to bail on my last day so I went to work anyway. I work in the outdoor department so I decided to go inside and do sales and let somebody else reap the commission benefits since it was my last day. We were undergoing an audit from corporate and they
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    showed up right as I was wrapping up a sale and wanted to know what I was doing outside of my department. I told him I was hanging out and making sales because my sinuses hurt and I wasn't feeling well. He then got really snippy with me and said in a condescending tone, "you're just hanging out?". I responded with "yes, hanging out and making sales". He told me I should get off my and get back to my department. I took off the company vest that we were wearing, rolled it into a ball, and threw it
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    baseball. I then told him to shove it up his 1. I turned around and walked out. My friends called me later on and told me that he went into a complete rage and demanded that I be fired immediately. The store manager started to laugh once he heard the story and told that guy it was my last day and I only had 2 hours left of that shift as it was. To this day I don't know if I've been blacklisted from that company or not, but I know I'd never work there again anyway.

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